Bruce Pavlow sitting in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the lower Haight in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, April 11, 2011. He's now published a book of the photos called "Survival House 1977."

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Bruce Pavlow sitting in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the...

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Survival House resident in chair

Photo: Bruce Pavlow

Survival House resident in chair

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Attila and Friend at Survival House

Photo: Bruce Pavlow

Attila and Friend at Survival House

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F.E. Mitchell, Founder and Director of Survival House

Photo: Bruce Pavlow

F.E. Mitchell, Founder and Director of Survival House

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Bruce Pavlow standing in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the lower Haight in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, April 11, 2011. He's now published a book of the photos called "Survival House 1977."

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Bruce Pavlow standing in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the...

Image 6 of 9

Attila and Friend at Survival House

Photo: Bruce Pavlow

Attila and Friend at Survival House

Image 7 of 9

Bruce Pavlow standing in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the lower Haight in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, April 11, 2011. He's now published a book of the photos called "Survival House 1977."

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Bruce Pavlow standing in front of the halfway house for LGBT in the...

The Victorian at 758 Haight St. is typical in that it has been divided into four units. But it wasn't typical, and it wasn't divided - even into private rooms - when Bruce Pavlow found his way here in 1977.

He was a senior at UC Berkeley, taking a class in "architecture of the gay community." Field research led him to this three-story halfway house, where he spent six months, coming and going with cameras to take both moving pictures and slides for extra credit. The two formats merged 34 years later with the release of the book "Survival House 1977."

"Going back that far, I don't think anyone ever thought about documenting this particular type of an institution." recalls Pavlow, who stayed with the project even after completing the class and his degree in architecture. "It was this unusual situation, all these people from different walks of life - veterans from the Vietnam War, hustlers, transsexuals - all living under one roof because they were homeless."

Officially named the Golden Gate Gay Liberation House and Survival Project, the rented house lasted only a few years before the funding dried up and it closed in 1978. Pavlow's portraits, candids, interiors, notes posted on doors, applications to move in, and inspirational messages are all that's left of this piece of gay history specific to the mid-'70s, like Frisco Disco and the Barracks.

Beyond its rarely seen images from the era, the book provides an insider's view into an underground society on the verge of assimilation.

The self-published paperback is a limited edition of 1,000 copies for $24.95. It is available at A Different Light Bookstore, which turns out to be on a more limited run than Pavlow's book. Opened on Castro Street in 1979, the store dedicated to gay literature is closing at the end of April.

No visits from subjects

This month, Pavlow, 58, held a book-signing there in hopes that some of the subjects would show up. None did, though he did get a surprise visit from a gay friend he'd not seen since high school days at Lowell in the early 1970s.

The videotape Pavlow shot at 758 Haight became a documentary, "Survival House: 24 Parts." It got some film festival play in 1978 and '79, and that was the end of it. He moved to New York, where he has lived for 30 years while working in film editing. The slides stayed in their metal separator box until three years ago. If he'd shot in black-and-white, as he did his video, they'd probably be in the box still.

"I thought they were pretty good for portraiture photography, and they were in color, which was unusual for that time," he says. "Everybody shot black and white. It was a fine art cliche, almost."

When in San Francisco, Pavlow stays in style, on outer Broadway at the home of his parents, Lois and Fred Pavlow, which is also headquarters for Add-a-Garage construction. The day before returning to New York, a few weeks ago, Pavlow commandeers the company Mini Cooper for a climb over Divisadero to Survival House.

Recalling 'wild people'

It has been repainted taupe and teal, and the carport has been replaced by security gates. He walks up the steps for the first time in 30 years or more. Peering through the glass front door, he notices that the lobby still looks the same. But the admissions desk in the front hall has been replaced by a security camera looking back at him.

None of the residents answers the buzzer, and Pavlow doesn't know what he'd say to them if they did. So he sits down on the top step, looking south over the Lower Haight.

"I remember wild people running up and down these steps," he says, recalling eight or nine bedrooms in the layout. "Every room had numerous people living in it. I hung out and got to know them. Everyone was very open."

It was five years before the acronym AIDS was created.

"I never kept up with any of them after the project," he says. "I'm assuming some of them are still alive."